Fort Lewis College’s School of Education has secured nearly $7 million in federal grants aimed at diversifying teacher recruitment and enhancing bilingual education programs across the region.
The funding, distributed through two major grants, targets support for marginalized students pursuing teaching licensure and expands bilingual education in both Spanish and Indigenous languages.
“We are a long-standing teacher education program in the state of Colorado, specifically as it pertains to languages,” said FLC Dean of Education Jenni Trujillo. “We are the oldest bilingual education program in the state, even any of the large universities. We had a long-standing commitment to teacher training with the Navajo Nation, specifically that goes back to the 1990s.”
The first grant, a $3.5 million award from the U.S. Office of English Language Acquisition, will fund Project Building Language and Opening Opportunities for Multilingualism (BLOOM) over the next five years. BLOOM addresses a growing demand for diverse, multilingual educators in underserved areas, with a special focus on Indigenous and heritage languages.
“BLOOM is designed to allow us and our regional partners to implement a multilayered project to increase the diversity of educators teaching Indigenous and heritage community students,” said Lorien Chambers Schuldt, chair of the Teacher Education Department.
The grant comes amid heightened concerns over teacher shortages, particularly in rural areas.
“There’s a teaching shortage across the United States, but it’s especially acute in rural areas and in tribal communities,” said Chiara Cannella, associate dean of Teacher Education, noting that 40% of students in FLC’s School of Education are Native American, with Spanish being the most popular heritage language in the area.
A heritage language is a language that is connected to a person's cultural or ancestral roots, but is not their native language. Cannella said that some students may lack fluency in their heritage language, and access to resources can significantly help develop that skill.
Bilingual candidates have shown to be in demand in educational fields.
U.S. Census data from 2021 reveal a linguistic gap among educators: only 13% of teachers in the U.S. speak a non-English language at home, compared with roughly 22% of the general population and at least 21% of children nationwide. In contrast, the child care workforce is notably more linguistically diverse, with 25% of caregivers speaking a language other than English at home.
“We know that all students benefit from the opportunity to develop additional languages in their lives. It's really cognitively beneficial. It's so important in terms of identity and language,” Chambers Schuldt said. “We see a lot of really strong, very well-demonstrated academic benefits that come from that.”
A second grant, $3.2 million from the U.S. Office of Postsecondary Education, establishes the Center for Educator Diversity, Achievement, and Responsiveness (CEDAR). CEDAR aims to train Indigenous and minority educators for positions in rural, charter and tribal schools, offering undergraduates mentorship, licensure support and resources for their early teaching careers.
According to data compiled by Teach for America in 2023, Native American students make up 1% of the public school population across the United States. Meanwhile, teachers who are Indigenous or Alaska Native make up only 0.5% of the U.S. teaching force.
Challenges to retain rural educators persist. Durango School District 9-R has sought to boost teacher pay to offset high local living costs, while Fort Lewis College has introduced initiatives, including mortgage assistance, to retain faculty and staff.
FLC’s partnerships for BLOOM and CEDAR extend to tribal schools in New Mexico and possibly Alaska, promising a far-reaching impact. The CEDAR grant also designates FLC as an Augustus F. Hawkins Center of Excellence.
Chambers Schuldt said historically the teaching profession has been predominantly white.
“We know that when students from underserved communities have teachers who share their background, it significantly boosts academic achievement and community well-being,” she said.
Both grants seek to address enduring disparities through support such as stipends, coaching and mentorship, with potential to reshape bilingual education and workforce diversity across the region’s schools.
tbrown@durangoherald.com